ARAB HISTORY BEFORE MOHAMMED

[1Sidenote: [380 B.C.-634 A.D.]]

2The history of Arabia and its inhabitants naturally divides itself into two distinct and even dissimilar periods, that, namely, which preceded the era of Mohammed, and that which followed it. Each of these two periods, though comprising in its extent several minor phases and fluctuations, now of advance, now of retrogression, bears, however, a well-marked general character of its own. The first of the two periods is distinguished as one of local monarchies and federal governments; the latter commences with theocratic centralisation dissolving into general anarchy.

3The first dawning gleams of anything that deserves to be called history disclose Arabia wholly, or nearly so, under the rule of a race of southern origin; the genuine, or, as they are sometimes termed from a mythical ancestor Kahtan, the Kahtanee Arabs. These, again, we find subdivided into several aristocratic monarchical governments, arranged so as to form a broad framework or rim around the central wilds of the peninsula.

4Oldest and chiefest among the Arab monarchies was that of Yemen; its regal residence is said to have been in the now abandoned town of Mareb, in the extreme south. After a devastating inundation, referred with some probability to the first century of the Christian era, the seat of government was removed from the ruins of Mareb to Sana, a city which has continued the metropolis of Yemen to the present day.

5The Yemenite kings, descendants of Kahtan and Himyar (the dusky), a name denoting African origin, and each adorned with the reiterated surname of “Tobba,” a word of African etymology, and signifying “powerful,” are said to have reigned, with a few dynastic interruptions and palace revolutions, for about twenty-five hundred years, during which long period they commanded the direct obedience of the entire southern half of the peninsula; while, by their tribute-collectors, and by chiefs of kindred or delegated authority, they indirectly governed the northern.

6One of these monarchs is asserted, though historical criticism will hardly admit the assertion for fact, to have subdued the whole of central Asia, and even to have reached the boundaries of China; while another anticipated, so runs the story, the later and more authentic conquests of his race on the north African continent. In both these cases Arab chroniclers seem to have appropriated for their own rulers, not without some additional exaggerations, the glories and exploits of the Egyptian kings. But that theirs was a vigorous and in some respects a civilised government is attested alike by the literary and the architectural relics of their time.

7Their sovereignty was at last overthrown, 529 (A.D.) by an Abyssinian invasion, and was re-established in 603 A.D. as a dependency of the Persian Empire, till in the year 634 it was finally absorbed by Mohammedan conquest.

8[Sidenote: [100-500 A.D.]]

9Next in importance to the kingdom of Yemen came the subsidiary monarchy of Hira, or more correctly Heerah, situated in the northeasterly province of Arabian Irak. Its kings, a collateral branch of the royal race of Sana, governed the western shore of the lower Euphrates, from the neighbourhood of Babylon down to the confines of Nejd, and along the coast of the Persian Gulf. The duration of their empire, founded in the second century after Christ, was 424 years. This kingdom paid an uncertain allegiance to their more powerful neighbours, the Persian despots; and from time to time exercised considerable influence over the turbulent tribes of central Arabia, till, like Yemen, it sank before the rising fortunes of Mohammed and his followers.

10A third monarchy, that of Ghassan, lorded it on the northwest over lower Syria and the Hedjaz; its independence was somewhat tempered with unequal alliances with the Roman, and subsequently the Byzantine Empire. It was founded in the first century of the Christian era, shortly after the flood of Mareb; and its duration, till subdued by the all-conquering prophet, exceeded six hundred years.

11A fourth government, that of Kindeh, detached itself from Irak early in the fifth century, and united under its sceptre the tribes of northerly Nejd and even those of Oman, for about 160 years. Its kings were, like those before mentioned, of Yemenite origin; but their rule was weak and disturbed by frequent wars.

12Much has been written by Arab authors regarding the great inundation, as they term it, of Arem or Mareb, possibly a tropical cyclone of more than ordinary destructiveness, like that of 1867 in the West Indies; and this event they love to assign as the proximate cause which dispersed the families of Yemen over northern Arabia, and led to the foundation of the kingdoms of Irak and Ghassan. But the reality of the events, physical or political, symbolised by the “flood of Arem” (a counterpart, after its fashion, of the biblical flood) cannot now be well deciphered.

13This is however certain--in that the Yemenite Arabs, and especially those who tenanted the south of the peninsula, had, during the period now cursorily sketched, attained a very fair degree of civilisation--that arts and commerce flourished, that wealth was accumulated, literature cultivated, and talent held in esteem. On all these points we have not only the uncertain and distorted testimony of foreign authors, such as Strabo, Pliny, Diodorus, Ptolemy, and the like, but the more positive though fragmentary evidence afforded by the national writings, chiefly verse, that have survived to our day.

14In its general character and institutions the kingdom of Yemen seems to have borne a considerable resemblance to the neighbouring one of the Nile valley, on the other side of the Red Sea, and, like it, to have reached at a very early epoch a relatively high degree of prosperity and social culture, from which, however, it had long declined before its final extinction in the seventh century. But the daughter-kingdom of Hira had, as was natural, something of a Persian tinge; while that of Ghassan took a more Byzantine colouring. Lastly, the nomadic element predominated in the ill-cemented monarchy of Kindeh.

15But while the sceptre of Yemen was yet, in one form or other, outstretched over the length and breadth of the land, and its children, the genuine or African Arabs, formed a complete and dense circle of population all around, the centre of Arabia remained the stronghold of a different though kindred race, in their mode of living wild and ferocious; less susceptible of culture, but gifted with greater energy and concentration of purpose than their southern cousins.

16The latest recorded emigration of this branch of the Arab stock had been not from the south but the north; and instead of the mythical Kahtan, they claimed a no less mythical Adnan, or his supposed grandson Nezar, for their ancestor; their language, though radically identical with that spoken by the genuine Arabs, was yet dialectically different in several respects, and nearer to the Syriac or Hebrew. Lastly, unlike the Arabs from the south, they had little disposition for agriculture, and even less for architecture and the fine arts; their instincts leading them to a pastoral and consequently a nomadic life. The almost infinite ramifications of these “Mustareb” or “adscititious Arab” tribes lead ultimately up to five principal stocks.

17These were Rabiah, which, however, laid some claim to a Yemenite kinsmanship in the east centre of the peninsula; Koreish, on the west; Kais, or Kais-Ailan, and Hawazin, on the north; and Tamin in the middle.

18[Sidenote: [500-570 A.D.]]

19History has left unrecorded the exact date of their arrival in Arabia; nor has she defined the period during which they remained tributaries, though often refractory, of the kings of Yemen. But in the fifth century of the Christian era there appeared among the Mustareb tribes a leader of extraordinary talent and energy named Kolaib, sprung from the tribe of Rabiah, who having, in the fashion of William Tell, slain with his own hand the insolent and licentious tax-gatherer sent them from Sana, raised the banner of general revolt in Nejd; and, in the battle of Hazat (500 A.D.), broke forever the bonds of Yemen from off the neck of the northern Arabs.

20This done, Kolaib aspired to unite his countrymen into one vast confederacy, over which he himself exercised for a time an almost kingly power; but the scheme was prematurely broken off by his own assassination. Left now without a master, but also without a ruler, the Mustareb tribes found themselves involved in a series of wars that lasted during the whole of the sixth century, their heroic period. Yet in spite of severe losses sustained in battle by this or that particular clan, their power as a whole went on increasing, till at the dawn of the seventh century they had wholly absorbed the feeble kingdom of Kindeh, and encroached yearly more and more on the narrowing bounds of Yemen, Irak, and Ghassan.

21[Illustration: AN ARAB CHIEF]

22Nor, probably, would they have stayed till they had become absolute lords over the whole, or nearly the whole, of the peninsula, had there not developed itself from among themselves a still more energetic element which, before many years had passed, reduced both northern and southern Arabs alike to common obedience, then raised them to an unexpected height of common glory, and at last plunged them, along with itself, into one comprehensive decline and ruin. This new and potent element was the well-known clan of Fihr or Koreish.

23Its families, of Mustareb descent, had at an early period, which subsequent and Mohammedan chroniclers have tried to identify with the fortunes of the mythical Ismail, established themselves in the southerly Hedjaz, near the town of Mecca, a locality even then the principal religious and commercial centre of Arabia.

24Already, at the beginning of the fifth century, the chiefs of Koreish had, by a mixture of violence and craft very characteristic of their race, rendered themselves the masters and the acknowledged guardians of the sacred “Kaaba.” This square stone temple, or rather shrine, itself of unknown antiquity, was situated within the precincts of the town of Mecca; and to it the Arabs were in the habit of bringing yearly offerings, and of making devout pilgrimages, for centuries before Mohammed had adopted it into the new ritual of Islam as the house of the true God.

25The keys of the consecrated building had originally been in possession of delegates appointed by the monarch of Yemen; but the Koreish Arabs, having once obtained them, held them fast forever after, and successfully repelled every effort, both of their own pagan competitors and of the invading Christian Abyssinians (570 A.D.), to recapture or to seize them. Their possession of the temple keys not only gave the tribe of Koreish a semi-religious pre-eminence over all the other clans of Arabia, but also placed at their disposal the treasures of gold, silver, jewels, and other offerings accumulated by the pagan piety of ages in the temple of Mecca.

26[Sidenote: [500-600 A.D.]]

27A more important, as also a more creditable, source of wealth to the Koreish clan was their Red Sea coast traffic, particularly with the ports of Yemen and Abyssinia. Jiddah has been always the chief westerly seaport, and Mecca, which is only a few leagues distant, the principal inland emporium, of Arab trade; and under the dominating influence of the clever and active merchants of Koreish, both places acquired special prosperity and importance.

28Lastly, only a day’s journey distant from Mecca, was held, in the pre-Islamitic times, the great yearly fair and gathering of Okad, so called from the name of the plain where it used to assemble--a national meeting, frequented by men of all conditions, from all quarters of the Arab peninsula, and lasting through the entire month of Dhul-kaadeh, which in pagan, as subsequently in Mohammedan reckoning, immediately preceded the ceremonies of the annual pilgrimage. Here horse races, athletic games, poetical recitals, and every kind of public amusement, diversified the more serious commercial transactions of an open fair, that, in its comprehensiveness, almost assumed the proportions of a national exhibition.

29Here, too, matters of the highest import, questions of peace and war, of treaty and alliance, of justice and revenge, were habitually treated by the chiefs of the northern Arabs; the “children of Mezar,” to give them their favourite Mustareb patronymic, assembled in a sort of amphictyonic council, not less ancient, but while it lasted much more influential throughout Arabia, than that of Thebes ever had been in classic Greece. In this assembly the immediate local proximity of the Koreish chiefs, joined to their personal wealth, courage, and address, assigned them a predominant position.

30Of their pedigree, which, as is well known, includes that of Mohammed himself, we have a carefully (too carefully, indeed, for authenticity) constructed chronicle, bringing the family tree up in due form to Ishmael, the son of Abraham, of whom the Koreish figure as the direct descendants. In the same artificial annals the Yemenite, or genuine Arabs, appear under the cousinly character of the children of Joktan, the son of Eber. On these points all Mohammedan annalists are equally positive and distinct; all other Arab testimony is equally adverse or silent.

31That a fable so utterly defiant of reasonable chronology, and even of the common sense of history itself, should have been adopted as matter of fact by Arab vanity and ignorance, is less surprising than that it should have found favour in the eyes of not a few, indeed of most, of our own European writers. Enough here to say that Mohammedan chroniclers, by adopting as irrefragable historical authority the Jewish records, and then retouching them here and there in accordance with their own special predictions and tenets, have succeeded in concealing the truth of their own national identity and story from themselves and even from others, under an almost hopeless incrustation of childish fiction.

32To sum up, at the opening of the seventh century of our era, and coincidently with the first appearance of the prophetic autocrat and destined remodeller of Arabia, the overteeming life and energy of the great peninsula was, broadly taken, thus divided: Foremost stood the tribe of Koreish, with their allies, a powerful confederacy composed of tribes belonging to the Mustareb or northern stock, and occupying the upper half of the westerly coast and region. Next in importance came the countless independent, and, thus far, uncentralised clans of the centre of the peninsula; they, too, are mostly of Mustareb origin; though a few claimed the more ancient and aristocratic kinsmanship of Yemen, but without, however, paying any allegiance to its rulers. Lastly, to the south, east, and north, still existed the noble but enfeebled relics of the old Yemenite kingdoms of Sana, Hira, and Ghassan, half-sunk into Persian or Byzantine vassalage, and exerting little authority, even within their own ancestral limits.

33[Sidenote: [25 B.C.-632 A.D.]]

34But, however important to the country itself and in their ultimate results to the world at large might be the events that took place within Arabia during the pre-Islamitic epoch, they had small bearing on the nations outside the peninsula. The Yemenite queen of Sheba’s ambassage to Solomon, even if an historical event, led at least to no historical results; and with other coeval rulers and nationalities, Greek, Persian, and Macedonian, the Arabs rarely came into any other contact than that of distant and desultory traffic. Nor do the frontier skirmishes by which an Antigonus or a Ptolemy attempted, without success, to gain a footing in Arabia, deserve more than a passing notice; and Pompey himself, victorious elsewhere, was foiled on its frontiers.

35At last during the reign of Augustus, Ælius Gallus, the Roman prefect of Egypt, undertook a military expedition against Yemen itself, with the view of annexing that region, which report enriched with immense treasures, to the Roman Empire. With an army composed of ten thousand Roman infantry, five hundred Jews, and one thousand Nabatæans, he crossed the Red Sea in two hundred and ten galleys, and landed at Moilah, or Leuce Come, in 25° N. lat., near the modern Yambo. After some delay, the consequence of disease and disorganisation among his troops, he marched southward until he reached the inland district and city of Nejran, on the nearer frontier of Yemen. The town of Nejran he is said to have taken by assault, as well as a few neighbouring places, probably mere villages, of little note.

36Meanwhile a large force of Arabs had assembled to oppose him, but Gallus easily defeated them, and advanced to Mareb itself, then, we may suppose, the capital of Yemen. But the Roman soldiers, unaccustomed to the heat of the tropical climate, and much reduced in numbers, were incapable of laying siege to that town; and their general thus found himself forced to retreat, and recrossed the sea to Egypt without having effected any permanent settlement on the Arab side. Later attempts, made by Roman governors or generals under Trajan and Severus, were restricted to the neighbourhood of the Assyrian frontier; and the ruined cities of Bosrah and Petra yet indicate the landmarks of the extreme southerly limits reached by imperial dominion over Arab territory.

37More serious, and more lasting in its consequences, was the great Abyssinian invasion of Yemen in 529, when Aryat, son or lieutenant of the king of Abyssinia, landed in Aden with an army of seventy thousand men, to avenge his co-religionists, the Christians, who had been cruelly persecuted by Dhu-Nowas, king of Yemen, himself a proselyte to and an ardent propagator of the Jewish code. The expedition was successful; Dhu-Nowas perished, Christianity was proclaimed, and for seventy-six years the Ethiopian conquerors retained subject to their rule the southern and richer half of the peninsula. Their king Abraha even advanced, in 570 A.D. (the year of the birth of Mohammed) as far as Mecca; but beneath its walls suffered a repulse, which has been magnified by the _Koran_ and Mohammedan tradition into the proportions of a miracle. Persian assistance, furnished by the great Chosroes, ultimately enabled the Arabs under Seif, son of Yezen, last direct lineal descendant of the old kings of Sana, to liberate their territory from its dusky usurpers (605 A.D.).

38The seventh century had now commenced, and before long the wonderful successes of Mohammed (622-632 A.D.), while they closed in one great centralising effort the era of Arab progress and development within the land, opened a marvellous phase of new activity and almost boundless extension without.[l]

39[Illustration]